Well done, sir. And now I’ll go catch up on a couple other threads, then finish “Metatropolis”, which I’m enjoying tremendously, and I haven’t even gotten to Scalzi’s story yet, said she in run-on fashion.

“The Complexity of the Fermi Paradox”. Which btw has one additional element that Brust figured out. “Dreamwalking”. What if some kind of group mind (think of “Childhood’s End”) or any subset of it cybernetically linked, could simply observe reality at any spatial distance. How much need would you feel to physically go there, especially when most of “there” consists of physically hostile environments. I think the solution to the Fermi paradox is that most intelligent races are armchair space explorers.

I’ll paraphrase poorly from memory. Once the casino management realized that few English Lit professors present were involved in gambling, boozing, or whoring, things settled down to the metaphysical strip show starring Ursula K Le Guin, a track to whom the conference had dedicated, and who appeared, smiling enigmatically, at all the papers on her oeuvre.

In a cocktail lounge, a cocktail waitress, drawn to Brust’s leather cowboy hat and general aura, said: “What do you do for a living.”

Every time I look at my copy of Redshirts, I think of a Star Trek filk beginning “When our big three have got themselves in trouble” with a chorus that begins”They call Security, those guys you always see” but I can’t remember the rest of it. You can find the original Russian version of “Those were the Days” at http://ingeb.org/songs/thosewer.html

Ref my 2:02 pm: Outstanding work. I love the way the stories blend together while having undeniably their own voices. And a pig farmer who comes across as an asshole? Is this at least partly autobiographical? I ask this as one in-trouble-all-the-time class clown to another. :-)

Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m thinking this explains about fifty percent of your comments which, while usually quite fascinating, are often obscure the point of WTF or just plain way off topic.

That said, I’m pretty sure the possibility that ET’s just build vast interferometric voyeur-ger arrays (see what I did there) instead of wasting energy on sublight missions predates Mr. Burst, but that’s the first time I’ve heard astronomers referred to as armchair space explorers. I have an old astronomy major friend on whom I plan to deploy it, so gracias :)

Thank you, Gulliver, but no. Brust is rather busy with health issues right now, I am given to understand, for which we wish him the best, which is why it was sweet that he did this. He is unlikely to be interested in licensing it in any way, but he might tell Neil to go ahead if Neil wants to, for free or the .99. Of Neil can offer it off his blog, etc. If there’s a legal download offer, beyond the YouTube, I’ll take it. Otherwise, I’ll just enjoy it on YouTube. After all, Neil plays an excellent ukelele. Having been an idiot on Scalzi’s blog, the song is an honor.

However, if Scalzi will allow a minor diversion, if anyone knows how to correct the bug in Windows 7 that allows a laptop to connect to a network modem/router but refuses Internet access, let me know.

It’s been a few years since I had to deal with Windows. But, depending on the router gateway, it’s possible the gateway might need to be configured to allow machines connected to it to access the internet. This will get you started with determining your gateway’s IP address and accessing those settings if you don’t have its instruction manual:

Before you do anything else, you might want to try a different browser such as Firefox or Chrome, either of which is immeasurably superior to IE. Firefox has a bigger plug-in community, but Chrome is a bit faster on most machines.

I didn’t know Mr. Brust was ill. I’ll add my own wishes for his health to improve. I wasn’t aware of him until yesterday, but he clearly has the esteem of a lot of good people.

As for downloading in general, I agree more than you might imagine and have a special disdain for those who do not. I believe people should always remunerate artists for their labor. I only use stream-rippers unless or until I can buy their work legit. For example, I enjoyed Redshirt that way until it was up on Jonathan Coulton’s site, at which point I bought his whole back catalog. After all, I made my living selling intellectual property, which has allowed me to further my education and make investments which will one day help raise the children my partner and I hope to have and support us in our retirement (assuming the world doesn’t end in four months).

Oh, and yes, Neil ukes out! I’ve been a musician since my mom taught us to play the piano as kids, but I’ve never been anything more than barely proficient at any of the plucked strings. He also has a pretty good set of vocal cords. If he opened up his diaphragm and breathed more steadily, he’d be unstoppable.